[I feel like I shouldn’t really have to say this, but… this post contains spoilers for the 2012 Disney film Wreck-It Ralph.]

During my children’s most recent viewing of one of their favorite films, Wreck-It Ralph, one scene jumped out at me from the hazy, half-listening fog of getting stuff done while my kids have screen time. About halfway through the film 2 male characters – the protagonist and the antagonist of the story – have a conversation about what is in the best interest of an absent female character. In and around that conversation, both King Candy and Wreck-It Ralph claim that they are “doing what’s best” for Vanellope. 

It was enough to make me groan out loud.

But then it began to dawn on me: this movie contains a parable of sorts… a parable about Patriarchy. 

What is this loud girl doing in my story about a man fulfilling his destiny?!

We first meet the character of Vanellope Von Schweetz when the film’s main character, Ralph, accidentally finds himself in Sugar Rush, the arcade racing game in which she lives. Vanellope at first appears to be an obnoxious foil to Ralph reaching his goals, and therefore we as viewers don’t take her very seriously. This is the first instance in which Wreck-It Ralph the movie uses Patriarchy to mess with us: we are conditioned to think this is Ralph’s story. He’s the white male whom the movie is named after, so we’re supposed to be on his side. When Vanellope steals the gold medal which Ralph needs to attain his self-fulfillment dreams (a medal which he, too, stole by the way), we instinctively side with Ralph. Vanellope is a villain!

“This event is pay to play”

Like any good story, events unfold to reveal that the situation is more complicated than we, and Ralph, initially believe. Vanellope takes her newly acquired gold medal to a qualifying race where Sugar Rush citizens compete to become one of the nine avatars that people can use when playing the arcade game. Here we encounter one of the key texts of the movie, which can easily be missed because it passes quickly…

King Candy, the ruler of Sugar Rush, opens the race and declares, “This event is pay to play. The fee to compete is one gold coin, from your previous winnings, if you’ve ever won.”

If. You’ve. Ever. Won.

This, my friends, is how all systems of power are established.* On the surface these systems can appear fair and accessible, like a race where anyone has the chance to win. But we have to recognize the truth: only those who possess the prerequisites to enter the race have access to the ‘fair’ system. Everyone else is excluded. 

Because Vanellope has never previously won a race, she can never win the race. It is a closed circuit; an exclusionary loop of winning which Vanellope can never hope to break into by following the rules. The winners will continue to win because those who aren’t counted among the winners aren’t even allowed to play.

In other words… Men will continue to hold the power and make all the decisions when women don’t have the “previous winnings” inherited from centuries of being allowed to vote and own property and receive education and hold office in government &/or religion that men take for granted … Until women stand up to the system and demand a gold coin.

Vanellope uses Ralph’s medal as her gold coin to get her name on the racing board. She’s in! She can finally race and prove that she belongs.

… But only because she bucked the system.

“I’m not against her”

Once Ralph realizes the only way to recover his medal is to help Vanellope win, the two work together to build Vanellope a race kart and learn to drive before the big race commences. They develop a friendship as they work, bonding over being outcasts in their games.

Then we arrive at the scene I referenced earlier. King Candy meets secretly with Ralph and tells him that if Vanellope becomes an avatar, the entire Sugar Rush game (including Vanellope’s life) could be in mortal danger. King Candy insists that he is “not against” Vanellope, rather he is doing what’s best for her by excluding her as an avatar. 

Here is where Ralph makes his biggest mistake by believing King Candy.

Even though his friend Vanellope told him, “I know I’m a real racer. I feel it in my code,” Ralph thinks he knows what’s best for her. He uses his physical dominance to sideline Vanellope & wreck her race kart while insisting “I’m doing this for your own good.” All Vanellope has left is helpless fury in the face of a grossly unjust situation which she cannot control.

This is a sickening display of an experience every woman deals with: being patronized.

Patronizing is insidious, and it’s all the more terrible when it comes from men we trust. We might expect it from cartoonish trolls like King Candy, but we don’t expect if from allies and friends like Ralph. Think of all the women who have said something like “I know I’m meant to lead,” only to have a boss she trusts tell her, “We decided that your temperament and experiences aren’t suited to leading. We know what’s best.” Or women who have known, “I am a real pastor. I can feel it in my soul,” only to have the church she has faith in tell her, “No, your calling is wrong. Women can’t lead spiritually. We know what’s best.” It is crushing. 

Until you’ve experienced the unique horror of being categorically dismissed, of being told that you aren’t something that you know you are, you’ll never understand the thunderous damage being patronized can have on a person. 

Thankfully, Ralph soon learns just how wrongly he acted by dismissing & patronizing Vanellope.

This all started with an insecure, power-hungry man

Toward the end of the film, Ralph learns the real story…

There once was a respected and powerful video game racer named Turbo. When the arcade he ruled began to change & grow, Turbo couldn’t accept a world in which he was not at the top. So Turbo jumped to a new game and took over by rewriting the computer code. He removed the rightful leader, Princess Vanellope, and set himself up as King Candy; remaking Sugar Rush into his own system of power. Because King Candy couldn’t completely purge Vanellope’s code from the game, he branded her a “glitch” due to the damage he inflicted on her code, teaching the Sugar Rush citizens to despise, fear, and exclude her. (Is it a coincidence that glitch rhymes with an all-too-common derogatory label used to smear women who dare displease a man? Labels can have haunting effects.)

Sugar Rush, like the Patriarchy, is rigged. It’s rigged by an insecure, power-hungry man who needs above all else to hold onto power. King Candy lies to everyone: the Sugar Rush citizens, Ralph, even us, the audience. Ralph is fooled into believing he knows more than Vanellope about her own abilities. We’re fooled into believing that the Sugar Rush system just is the way it is. But it wasn’t created to be that way, and doesn’t have to stay that way! 

Vanellope knows her power. She doesn’t doubt that somewhere deep within herself, she is meant to be a racer. And she will not be kept down! With a self-sacrificial assist from Ralph, Vanellope completes the qualifying race and resets the code of the game. She is Princess once more. 

I think it’s telling that in a movie about “bad guy” Ralph becoming a hero, the most heroic thing he does is help Vanellope regain her power.

Wreck-It Ralph is a really good story on many levels. The parable on Patriarchy contained within the Sugar Rush plot is just one example of the hidden gems in this underrated film. Once I noticed this theme, I wanted to explore it more by writing about it. If you’ve seen Wreck-It Ralph, I’d be interested to know if the subtext about Patriarchy was obvious to you, or what themes stand out to you in the film. 

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*In this post I focus on Patriarchy as a system of power, but most of what I’ve outlined is also true of systemized racism and/or heteronormativity. These are systems of power in which I have inherited the “previous winnings” that allow me to enter the race. While I’m a minority when it comes to issues of gender, I recognize that I have privilege when it comes to my race, my socioeconomic class, and my sexual orientation/identity. Here is an instance where I’m writing what I know. But I also want to check my privilege.